Tuesday, April 25, 2017

Putin’s Increasing Paranoia a Threat to the World and to Russia Itself, Analysts Suggest

Paul
Goble

Staunton, April 25 – Vladimir Putin’s
statement yesterday that one must look around all the time so that “no one will
eat us” shows, Russian commentator Igor Eidman says, that the Kremlin leader’s
paranoia is “progressing,” an especially dangerous situation when the
individual involved is head of a nuclear power.

Putin said that it is always useful
to look at what takes place in nature, Eidman continues, because it is clear
that “he considers tha the entire world lives according to the laws of the
jungle and that there are enemies all around seeking to each you. Therefore,
one must always “’strike first’” (facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1463269857069322&id=100001589654713).

The Russian commentator focuses on the
foreign policy consequences of this paranoia, but there are domestic ones as
well.They include not only the
postulation of and search for an increasing number of enemies but also the
inability to take in the big picture rather than be driven by one’s
presuppositions and prejudices.

One reason for his doing so is the
widespread xenophobia of Russians about Central Asians, a xenophobia he has
promoted; but another and perhaps more important one is that Putin, like most
Russian rulers, is myopic and worries about what he sees in Moscow rather than
what is taking place elsewhere.